The tale about Itō Ittōsai Kagehisa is an example of one obtaining self-enlightenment.
Born on the big island of Itō¹, his journey began at the age of 14 where, determined to become stronger through pursuing martial arts, he risked his life and swam a great distance all the way to Mishima Island in his prefecture.
After reaching his destination, Ittōsai emerged from the water with his appearance looking terrifying due to swimming in the ocean for a long period of time. The villagers who saw him ran away from fright, mistaking him for a monster living somewhere on the island.He decided to adopt the name “Oniyasha”², in response to the locals calling him a monster. Under his new guise, he roamed around his new area, and took refuge under the ground floor of the local temple, Mishima Jinja.
One day, a martial artist by the name Toda Ippō came to the village to teach swordsmanship. Oniyasha (Ittōsai) approached this individual and challenged him to a match. Ippō, known as an expert, is renown for his extraordinary training across the land as a swordsman.
However, as the two squared off against one another with wooden swords, Oniyasha poised himself, then struck his opponent repeatedly in a flash, scoring points for each round triumphantly. Shamed in defeat, Ippō quietly departed from the village through the cover of the night.
It just so happened that the head priest of Mishima Jinja was watching the match between Oniyasha and Ippō. Approaching the young boy, he adopted him into his family. One day, when the priest inquired to him about any desires he may have, the young boy replied that he wants to learn martial arts.
In order to support this, the priest gave Oniyasha a unique sword called “Ichimonji”, one that was crafted by a renown blacksmith from Bizen Country a long time ago, and was offered to Mishima Jinja. It is still in great condition; even after being hung for many years on a ridgebeam in the roof, then falling & piercing into a sake barrel after the rope supporting it had rotten & fallen apart, the sword sustained no damage.
Informed that arrangements were made for him to set out on a trip the next day in order to seek out a competent sword teacher, Oniyasha became very happy for his good fortune. Later that night, around 5~6 thieves had entered into the temple while he was asleep. Aware of the intrusion, the priest gave Ichimonji to Oniyasha, even though it lacked the necessary fittings on the handle and wasn’t ready for use³. Despite these setbacks, the young boy was able to slay all the thieves.
(During this ordeal, one of the thieves resorted to hiding in a sake barrel, Oniyasha took notice of this and, leaping forward, sliced through the sake barrel with his sword. Amazingly, both the thief and the barrel were split in half. From this, a technique was devised which he called Taru Wari (Barrel Cleave), which became part of his cherished collection of knowledge. Later, this would be passed down to his disciple Ono Yoshiaki as a high-level transmission.)
1) Present day Itō City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Note that other sources claim different birthplaces.
2) Interestingly, this nickname is written with the characters “鬼夜刃”, which would possibly be read as “Oniyajin”. In other sources, it’s written as “鬼夜叉” (Oniyasha). I don’t know why in this version of the story the kanji “刃” is used instead of “叉”. To stay consistent with other versions, I will use the more common Oniyasha nickname.
3) The sword was most likely in a shirasaya (白鞘, an unlacquered white oak sheath) and shira tsuka (白柄, a simple white oak sword handle). Usually a sword is either stored away or placed on display in this fashion, lacking the necessities for combat (i.e. a tsuba, and a proper tsuka wrapped in ito maki).
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